


the thought that counts

by hydrochaeris



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Fluff? i guess?, M/M, Nursey's Life Is Not A Romance Novel, and less hints at the found family trope than nursey deserves, this is just a bunch of members of the smh fucking with nursey i won't lie to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 12:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9725546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrochaeris/pseuds/hydrochaeris
Summary: The thing about the cards for the people you don’t like, though, is that they’re the easiest to make.(For the Nursey Week prompt: Memories/Red.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> so i know there are a lot of little timeline consistencies in this and i'm really sorry, i didn't have a lot of time to edit because it's the last day of nursey week and i've got shit to do but i wanted to write something for his birthday. it ended up being 4k words because i don't plot i just write and frankly i regret that method a lot lmao. dex probably wasn't born in autumn, john mulaney's the comeback kid special was not out when derek was a freshman in high school, etc. hopefully y'all can just overlook those and enjoy this anyway. happy birthday nursey!

On Derek’s first memory of Valentine’s Day, he’d had to make cards for everyone in his class, even the kids he didn’t like. Everyone knew how to pick out the cards from people who didn’t know you or didn’t like you—they were plainly decorated, black Sharpie on red construction paper folded once, a message that said “You are cool and nice.”

The thing about the cards for the people you don’t like, though, is that they’re the easiest to make. Most of the time the fact that the kids in Derek’s class didn’t really bother to interact with him was a terrible truth that sat cold in the pit of his stomach and tugged at the edges of his mind, always willing to remind him that he wasn’t likable, that no one cared about what he had to say. But on Valentine’s Day? Well, his mama had always told him to find the good in the bad. And not having to agonize over personalized messages for all thirty-five kids in his class who he didn’t really know was a blessing in disguise.

(Or that’s how he chose to remember it now. He knew that his five year old self had buried his face in his mom’s blazer and sobbed, tears streaking the silk before his mom had tilted his chin up with two gentle fingers and said, “Baby, you’re too good for them, okay? They don’t know what they’re missing out on. I love you; don’t you forget that. You’ve got an old soul. You’re ahead of your time. Don’t worry about these children, baby. You’re already far beyond them.” He knew, but he didn’t think about that even at five, some part of him realized that it wasn’t that he was too good for them, but that he was different. That it wasn’t his classmates who needed to catch up to him, but he who needed to slow down and start changing himself. So he wouldn’t talk as much and have to see the other kids roll their eyes as he went on a tirade about the latest book he’d read, with no pictures but ten chapters! Or ask a million excited questions about every new subject his teacher introduced while his peers tapped their toes and waited for the actual lesson to begin. It wasn’t like his mom had said, that they didn’t know what they were missing. It was that they knew exactly who Derek was, and they didn’t like him one bit.)

And so it was that Derek Nurse, who would have wanted nothing more than a good friend so he could write about all of his favorite things about them in their card, had a constant give and take of red construction paper cards being handed to and passed out by him every year. Sometimes he made kind-of friends and they exchanged gifts with more personal touches, Derek buying them their favorite candy or them getting him a book he’d mentioned wanting. It was, ironically, the year the cards stopped being a mandatory ritual that he got his first real friend in high school, due to his location change to Andover.

-

Shitty Knight was a fantastic friend, and let him ramble on about any interest he pleased on two conditions: one, Derek let Shitty rant in return, and two, they were both high while this exchange happened. They talked about everything that Derek had ever pondered as a child, though he didn’t disclose that particular piece of information to Shitty. Everything from the multiverse theory to Dadaism and Surrealist art to frighteningly normal gossiping about all the snotty rich kids at their snotty rich kid school. It was the same sense of other that had surrounded Derek his entire life, but this time he was sharing the other with someone who got it. Or, well. Shitty was like him, sure, but he didn’t really get the other feeling because Shitty just didn’t give a fuck. And that was… that was something to aspire to.

“First three words of you think of when you hear the word ‘red,’” Shitty said. John Mulaney’s special buzzed dimly in the background of their conversation—Derek thought he heard the words ‘like a skull in a Shakespeare play’ flit in and out of the brief quiets in Shitty’s sentence. This was a game Shitty had made up at the beginning of the year, because the first time Derek had gotten high all he’d wanted to do was talk about colors, and Shitty was nothing if not an obliging friend. It was unfortunate that Derek was remembering that, though, since this was the last time they were going to sit and smoke on this bed together before Shitty had to go to college. It felt a bit too much like they were coming full circle. Except that circles didn’t have ends, and he was afraid their friendship would.

“Strength,” said Derek. “Messy. Versatile.”

“Sounds like my ideal threesome,” Shitty said, and they laughed together. “Okay, but. Versatile? Elaborate, my man.”

Derek leaned against the pillow that was between his back and the wall and took a slow drag of his joint as he considered what could’ve been his thought process.

“I dunno, like. It’s never just one thing. That sounds stupid; nothing is ever just one thing. Um. It’s got a lot of different connotations. So I can use it thematically in pieces of writing that could be complete opposites. It’s flexible.”

Shitty’s mustache twitched in the way it always did when he was pleased.

“Fuck, you’re so good at that. ‘S a gift, brah.”

Derek felt his face warm and gave a one shouldered shrug in response. “Thanks.”

“Listen,” Shitty said, and Derek felt the atmosphere shift so strongly he had to contain a shudder. This was what he’d been dreading the entire time. This part of the conversation. “You’re a good kid, and I wanna keep in touch with you when I’m in college. Text me before you do stupid shit, you know, whatever. Not that I’m gonna say no to you doing stupid shit. But like, it’d be cool for me to know when you do it, you feel?”

Derek hated the tears threatening to pour from his eyes more than anything then. He inhaled deeply, coughed, inhaled again, and breathed out, only a little shaky.

“Shitty—you’re like, my only friend.”

Fuck. That really wasn’t what he’d meant to say.

Shitty kicked the laptop with John Mulaney still doing stand up on it closed with one foot and leapt on top of Derek.

“Now listen here, you beautiful bastard,” Shitty said, grasping his shoulders firmly and staring him straight in the eye, “you are a wonderful freshie and you aren’t even half as bad as the rest of these morons who aren’t underclassmen either. You are new to this environment and that’s okay, but trust me, brah, I am not the only one who is ever gonna be your friend. Will you ever have a friend better than me?” He rolled his eyes and snorted. “Debatable. I am a glorious person to keep in close proximity at all times. But seeing as I won’t be around for you next year, you better find a fucking good replacement, okay?”

Derek had started crying about when Shitty’d said ‘morons,’ and he pushed frantically at Shitty’s chest to little avail.

“Dude, please, I’m getting your shirt wet.”

“Fuck this prep uniform,” Shitty said determinedly. “Fuck this school, too. You know a good person when you see one, Nurse. That counts for a lot at a shithole like Andover.” And he pecked Derek’s cheek once for emphasis before crawling off of him.

“Did you just give me, like, the Shitty Knight version of ‘real recognizes real’?” Derek said. He wiped at his eyes, rubbed his wet palms on his pants, and managed a half smile. “Man, I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too.” Shitty was nothing if not brutally honest, and it made something inside Derek unspeakably relieved to hear those words and know they were absolutely true. “Teach the freshies for me, will ya? We need to teach the freshest generation, as they have the most permeable brain membranes.”

Derek decided to not comment on how that sounded like Shitty wanted him to perform mind control and/or complex neurological surgery and instead re-opened the laptop.

-

“I’m just saying, like, do you think that he’d be okay with it?” Derek held Chowder’s ginormous shark plushie tight in his arms, doing his best not to rock back and forth on the bed like a little kid.

Chowder looked up from where he was sitting at his desk, presumably texting Farmer, and crossed his eyes.

“Nursey. You’ve been in here for twenty minutes.”

“You haven’t answered my question!”

“Okay.” Chowder took a deep breath, uncrossed his eyes, and tried to take the shark plushie from Nursey’s grasp.

“Hey—I need her for comfort! I am in distress!”

“Oh, fuck you,” Chowder said monotonously. “A guy can’t text his girlfriend for five minutes in this Haus without being interrupted with some outside drama—”

“I am not _outside drama_ , we are teammates,” Nursey muttered—

“Not to mention his beloved shark Rabbit has been tragically stolen—”

“I’m not gonna chirp you for that name because you’re gonna tell me again that I’m insulting your culture, but c’mon—”

“I would rather chew a puck than tell you whether or not you should get Dex a birthday present,” Chowder said decisively. “I refuse to be held responsible when you get him something that’s somehow terribly offensive and he punches you in the face.”

“That was _once_.”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t even a birthday gift, it was just because your poet’s heart moved you to act,” Chowder said. He really doesn’t have a tone shift between sarcastic and not. It’s terrifying. “Now I’m imagining you actually trying to be sensitive—I’m picturing you giving him a bouquet of roses—I’m picturing blood pouring out of your nose—no, it’s a great idea, Nursey! Fantastic! I say go for it!” He let his head fall onto the desk with a bang. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t even say that sarcastically because I know your East Coast ass will take it seriously.”

“Jesus, and the guys say I’m the dramatic one,” Nursey said, stroking Rabbit’s sewn-on gills.

“Twenty! Minutes!”

Nursey threw Rabbit at Chowder’s head. Rabbit bounced off and landed somewhere near the closet.

“Sorry. Fuck. I’m just nervous. We can’t all be you, C, and know exactly how to seduce people by falling off of someone’s shoulders and into the lap of your soulmate.”

“My relationship with Cait has way more depth and dimension than you claim,” Chowder said, voice muffled in fake wood grain. “But hey! I know what you should get Dex!”

His head flew off the desk so fast Derek nearly had a stroke, and his eyes were bright and beaming as he set them on Derek’s.

“Yeah, what?”

“A bouquet of roses!” Chowder said, immediately collapsing out of his chair in a bout of laughter so strong Derek wondered if he should get his inhaler.

“Your sense of humor is actually the worst,” he said in the general direction of Chowder’s hair. “Fuckin’ Californians.” Something occurred to him. “Uh, what color are these roses?”

“Red,” Chowder replied. “Wait—hypothetically. This is hypothetical. I’m spelling it out for you here, you over-literal New Yorker: do not under any circumstances get Dex a bouquet of roses. He said he hated them that one time. Also, if you really want to get him a gift, why not just sign the card I’m getting? Like a group thing from Frogs to Frog.” His eyes widen and Derek has the uncomfortable feeling he’s about to get called out. “Wait a sec. You said ‘seduce.’”

“I was just kidding,” Derek started to mumble, but Chowder was already on a roll.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I got you to admit that you like Dex, and it only took a year and a half and twenty minutes of you bitching in my room holding Rabbit hostage! I’m a genius, holy shit, this is so fucking ‘swawesome, you guys are gonna have the world’s _angriest_ children—”

“I can’t go thirty seconds near you without getting chirped,” Derek said miserably as Chowder climbed onto his bed beside him just to bounce on it obnoxiously. “Also, how dare you be self-congratulatory when it was clearly my self-sabotaging ass that slipped up and said the wrong word.”

Chowder turned to him solemnly. “Wow, you’re so right, Nursey, it’s all your fault!”

Derek leapt off the bed to grab Rabbit and bash her in Chowder’s face, gifts for Dex be damned for the moment.

-

Dex was sitting on the Haus Reading Room when Derek awkwardly came up behind him, not quite sure how to get his attention. Tapping his shoulder would probably lead to Dex startling and falling off the roof, but what could he say? Breathing like Darth Vader directly onto his neck could work.

“What are you staring at?” Dex said irritably, and Derek immediately banged his head on the windowframe in shock.

“ _Ow_. Um. Shit. Nothing. I was just, well, I was wondering if now wasn’t—I mean, I know it’s kind of early, but I. Got you a gift?”

When Dex did nothing but blink at him, Derek hurried to fill the silence.

“I know your birthday isn’t today, obviously, it’s tomorrow, I didn’t forget it! But I thought, uh, last year you celebrated with the team, so I thought you’d do that this year too, and this is like. I dunno. I didn’t want to give it to you in front of them? Oh, that sounds like it’s bad, it’s not bad, at least, I don’t _think_ —”

“Chill,” Dex said. And smirked. Wow, Derek hated him. Why had he bothered to get this asshole a gift again? “C’mere.” Dex patted the roof beside him and his smirk faded to a kind of shy smile, and oh, oh, okay, yeah. That was why.

He scrambled to sit beside Dex without actually sliding off the roof and dying, so fuck yeah, first mission: accomplished. Now for the hard part.

“I don’t really like you,” Dex said idly, his eyes tracing the pattern of a leaf as it spun haphazardly through the air, “but you’re my best friend.”

 _My heart is a leaf that flutters, twirls only for you_ , Derek’s awful brain supplied, and he grunted in a half-assed form of acknowledgment.

“Uh. Cool.”

Dex scooted to face Derek and tilted his head, worrying his bottom lip in his teeth. “You have a gift for me?”

“Oh! I mean, oh. Yeah. I do.” Derek handed the pristinely wrapped present over, trying to not look as emotionally constipated as he was feeling. “Happy birthday, Dex.”

Dex peeled off the tape as carefully and precisely as he did everything with his hands, curling it up under his nails before flicking the pieces away with his thumb. Derek thought about the tape getting caught in the tree in the front yard and being an environmental hazard, but he held his tongue. Then Dex was unfolding the plain red wrapping paper and Derek couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. He was too nervous.

Dex held the whisk up with a critical eye. “Huh. That’s nice. Thanks, Nursey.”

“No prob,” Derek said way too fast, running his words into the end of Dex’s sentence. “I mean, it was nothing. Just, I got it since I guess you like to bake, and I really hope I’m not replacing an old whisk heirloom—”

Dex coughed, though it might’ve been covering a laugh. “Did you, um, have the store wrap this for you?”

“No,” Derek said, feeling his back straighten in pride in spite of himself. “I did that myself.”

“Oh.” Dex looked at the barely wrinkled paper now sitting in his lap. “It looked pretty professional.”

“You’ll get a card tomorrow from both me and C.” Derek was fully aware that he was speaking for no reason, but he couldn’t stop. “I would’ve attached it to the whisk, but I mean, you know how Chowder likes to have us give group ca—”

“Nursey,” said Dex in a way that made Derek think that he hadn’t been listening at all, and really, thank fuck for that. “This, is. Um.”

Derek actually turned to look at Dex and was shocked to see his eyes glistening. Dex, not meeting Derek’s gaze, put the whisk carefully on the window ledge, tucking the wrapping paper securely under it.

“Thanks.” The word was quiet and squished between them as Dex threw his arms around Derek and Derek, too stunned to do anything else, returned the hug, marveling at how his hands looked on Dex’s back over his shoulder.

 _If this was a romance novel_ , Derek thought, _this would be the moment where Dex confesses some tragic childhood memory that resurfaced at me giving him the whisk, and the whisk would be a symbol of our budding relationship, growing even as everything else begins to die around us in the autumn_ _air, and he would cry into my shirt as we clung ever tighter_.

Because Derek’s life was not a romance novel, and Dex was certainly never one for confessing tragic childhood memories, only the last thing on that list happened. But as Derek breathed in Dex’s aftershave, stopped himself multiple times from asking why Dex was crying, and finally, finally, started relaxing into the rare realm of physical contact, he thought that maybe it was the most important.

-

On Derek’s most recent Valentine’s Day, he was surrounded by his friends and alcohol, and he thought that this was the best one yet. As the party finally dwindled to a close, he found himself with Ransom cleaning up the solo cups and putting away the last of the strawberry shortcake.

“Epic party, bro,” he said, nudging Ransom’s shoulder; his grin loose and happy and easy for once. “You and Holtzy always plan the best ones.”

“It’s easier when there’s a good reason to celebrate,” said Rans, returning Derek’s smile.

They cleaned in silence for a bit before he spoke up again.

“Hey, I was just wondering—you don’t gotta tell me if you don’t want to, obviously,” Ransom started, and Derek felt himself tense where he was sweeping streamers into a dustpan. “But did Dex not get you a gift this year, or did I just miss that exchange somehow?”

Derek exhaled on a semi-hysterical giggle. “Uh. Well.”

Ransom arched one of his perfect eyebrows at Derek.

“Bro. You know we all know there’s been shit between you two for forever, so I’m not gonna judge. I mean, good shit or bad shit—that’s debatable, but definitely something.”

That’s the relationship Derek had with most of the things in his life, honestly. But he got what Rans was saying.

“I started this tradition last year of giving him gifts the day before his birthday, so he decided that he’d give me a gift the day after my birthday. Fair’s fair and all.”

Ransom quirked his mouth in acknowledgment. “Yeah… is he getting you a _Valentine’s Day_ gift though, Nursey?” His eyebrow raise was becoming a suggestive waggle. Derek hated his life.

“Fuck off, man.”

“I’m just saying. I’m totally giving you permission to skip this after-party cleaning sesh and go to his dorm room. Where he’s probably waiting for you.” Ransom coughed. “He told me to tell you that, if that wasn’t clear.”

Derek half-heartedly tossed the broom at Ransom, who caught it flawlessly.

“Really? You couldn’t’ve just started the conversation with that?”

“Well I was _going_ to make a Nicki Minaj reference,” Ransom humphed, “but I thought it’d be too scandalous and you’d trip over your own feet.” He laughed as Derek started pulling on his shoes and fumbling to unlock the Haus doorknob. “I saved you your dignity, bro! Be grateful!” he called as Derek finally got the fucking door open and ran.

-

“What took you so long?” Dex said in lieu of a greeting. Derek toed off his shoes, leaving them by the door, and backed Dex up against the wall with a gentle hand on his waist.

Then he realized that he had no idea what he was doing at all and froze, face inches from Dex’s own.

“Uh. I was cleaning?”

“I hate Ransom so much,” Dex grumbled. “He didn’t tell you that I have a bow on my butt or something, right?”

Derek choked on air. “Um. No. No! He didn’t. Say that.”

“Fortunately for Ransom’s perfect cheekbones, I believe you,” Dex said. His brow furrowed and Derek tracked the movement with his eyes, wondering how he could make it reverse that movement. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

“ _What!_ ” Derek yelped, immediately taking four huge steps back—well, three and a half, because he’d tripped on something small and terrible on the floor behind him.

Dex cackled as Derek glared up at him.

“I can’t believe you tripped on my whisk.”

“ _I_ can’t believe you left my treasured and well-thought-out gift lying on your floor!”

“I wasn’t allowed to be messy as a child because I shared a room with a brother who would’ve killed me if any of my shit was lying around,” Dex said. “Let me have freedom in college, jeez.”

That’s probably the closest he’d ever come to confessing a tragic childhood memory.

“Okay, whatever,” Derek said, getting to his feet. “Did I kill the mood, or can I kiss you now?”

Dex gaped a little before shutting his mouth. “So I was right! You _were_ about to kiss me. I was kind of worried I had that wrong.”

Derek could feel his face wrinkle in confusion. “I don’t guide people’s backs into walls to just talk, Dex.”

“Right, I know that _now_ ,” Dex said in annoyance. “Do you wanna do this—” He cut himself off, frustrated, and closed the gap between their bodies, taking Derek’s face in his hands and kissing him soundly.

“ _Mmmph_ ,” Derek said, or would have said had he not been busy getting very thoroughly kissed. He put his hands on Dex’s waist and squeezed, then backed them up against Dex’s bed. Dex slid his hands down to Derek’s chest and gasped when their lips broke apart.

“Wait, come back,” he said, spreading his knees so Derek could stand between them. “Oh _shit_.”

Derek had to lean down to kiss him again with this angle, and then decided that it was terrible like this, taking Dex by the waist to position him more bodily on the bed and then covering his body from head to toe.

Dex whined into his mouth when Derek bit at his lip, and god, okay, this was really happening. He slid his tongue into Dex’s mouth, trying to figure out how to best make Dex squirm up under him and to get him to make the soft breathy noises that kept filling the air around them.

“Okay, stop, stop,” Dex said, though he arched up and kissed Derek one more time immediately after saying so. “Okay. Really. I’m. I need a moment.” He closed his eyes and Derek looked at his silvery blond eyelashes, almost invisible against his skin had there not been a steady pink flush creeping into his cheeks.

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t make you come in your pants before we’ve had an official first date,” Derek said, frowning. “That wouldn’t be very chill.”

Dex’s eyes flew open. “I was not going to come in my pants.”

Derek grinned and dropped his head down next to Dex’s on the bed to whisper in his ear. “Really? Because I thought you almost did when I lifted you up and put you where I wanted you.”

“ _Nursey_ ,” Dex said, and now his blush was spreading to his neck, god that was fucking adorable. “I don’t wanna—can you get off me a moment, please.”

Derek rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding rolling off the edge of the tiny fucking dorm bed, and started kissing Dex’s neck before he realized what he was doing.

“Shit, sorry, right. I’ll stop. I just kinda feel like this isn’t gonna last or something so I need to do everything with you right now. Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.” Now it was Derek’s turn to close his eyes as he cursed his stupid lack of filter.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Dex said. “I mean—I haven’t actually asked you out that, but that was sort of going to be your Valentine’s Day present.”

“So you ruined the surprise for me tomorrow?”

“No, I mean—I have another gift for you tomorrow if it holds up till then, but I thought it’d be. Um. Romantic? To ask you out on Valentine’s Day?”

Derek turned his head and kissed Dex’s nose. “You’re the cutest.”

Dex swatted his face absentmindedly. “Ugh. Shut up. Anyway, wanna date me or whatever?”

Derek couldn’t have stopped the huge, goofy smile spreading over his face if he’d tried.

“Dex, I would _love_ to date you or whatever.”

-

The thing about getting gifts for people you really like is that it’s difficult. Gift-giving is an art that doesn’t reveal who you like the most so much as who you know the least about. But the most ideal person to receive your gift understands that you’re doing your best to know them, even if the two of you have very little in common.

When Dex gives Derek a framed picture of him with his team—a picture of him with his friends—and says, anxiously, “I carved it myself, the edge there’s a little fucked up so don’t cut yourself on it, but I hope it’s alright,” Derek can do nothing but stare and say “It’s perfect.”

And when Dex admits that he was torn between giving Derek this and a bouquet of red roses, Derek can do nothing but laugh.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog it here!](http://wholsomholsom.tumblr.com/post/157248749656/the-thought-that-counts) for the curious: chowder's shark is named rabbit because that's the zodiac animal of his sister, julia, who bought rabbit for him ages ago and then demanded he named it julia after her (this was his compromise). the gift nursey got dex that resulted in dex punching him in the face was a watch after he noticed dex's watch was broken. unbeknownst to nursey, the watch was an heirloom and nursey implying that a) he should replace it and not carry on his family tradition, and/or b) he didn't believe dex was capable of fixing an old watch was enough that dex didn't think before he reacted. they apologized to each other, but no one in the haus will let nursey live it down, naturally. and lastly, the reason nursey gets dex a whisk is because baking is a metaphor.


End file.
